I do like the feel of a light bike. I enjoy adding little touches to a beloved bike to lighten it up just a bit. I am always picking up little Ti or Alloy bits to tinker with. This is part of the enjoyment of cycling to me. In recent years I have moved away from what I perceive as a slavish devotion to "Period Correct" and "Original" stuff on my bikes. Others do not share this enthusiasm, I realize. My own spin is that bikes were very often ordered with little variations that individualized them right from dealers and perhaps builders and that the owners of new bikes very often sought to make them a bit of their own personal perception of what was desirable. The line of exact originality is very blurry, at times, and I have found folks who scorn any deviation from what they perceive as correct to be a bit picky, to put it in the kindest of terms.
Now that being said, I am not sure that what one often seeks by lightening a bike is really speed. I like the way they handle in the lighter modes (I think, but this is pretty subjective.). It may well be more important to a rider such as myself if the bikes feels fast rather than any real increase in speed. The bikes that felt fastest to me have been the Masi 3V bikes I have owned. They just seem to respond well to pedal pressure and leap forward. Ever weighed one? You will be surprised. They are darn near as heavy as gas pipe bikes. I have concluded, after owning a few, that it is a lack of flex, especially in the stays that give them this feeling of speed.
I guess I'd conclude that going for light weight is almost more of an aesthetic and philosophical choice than a practical one for vintage steel bikes. It is, of course, still a very valid choice for those who choose to go that way. Let us be careful about running down other's choices.it's pretty much all good.
Tom Sanders
Lansing, Mi